Xbox boss Phil Spencer on PC: "I want to give people choice"

"To try force people to buy something by excluding their choice, it doesn't feel right."
Text: Mike Holmes
Published 2015-06-23

After an E3 where Microsoft announced that both Gears of War: Ultimate Edition and Killer Instinct would be following Fable Legends to PC, it's no surprise to hear Xbox boss Phil Spencer talking positively about the platform.

"Windows is obviously important to Microsoft, and the gaming space on Windows - I've said this before - as we went through the decade of 'all about Xbox', we didn't do the job we should have done in playing a role, a proactive role, in PC gaming," Spencer told Giant Bomb when talking about PC gaming, and Microsoft's renewed focus on the platform.

"As we talk about the future of the studios, the platform and Live, I think Windows is really important. As a gamer I play games on PC, I play games on my television on my Xbox One, I sometimes play games on my PlayStation 4. But I want to be able to play the games I want to play, where I want to play them."

"I know there's this kind of back channel that frankly I don't really subscribe to of ‘you need to keep people from playing in certain places', that somehow that's the answer. I want to give people choice, and I think in Xbox I want it to be the best TV gaming experience you can have.

"But frankly if I'm not around my TV and I'm on my laptop, and I want to play Killer Instinct, or I want to play Gears, or I want to play Fable, I should be able to do that. And to try force people to buy something by excluding their choice, it doesn't feel right. It was kind of our Kinect decision early on - about is Kinect in or out of the box? Let it exist on its own merits, and it's the same thing with our games and where people wanna play."

Does this mean that we're going to get Halo 5: Guardians on PC too? We're not holding out breath.

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